


Peace amongst the oaks

by LordMaddie



Category: Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland
Genre: M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:07:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28900875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordMaddie/pseuds/LordMaddie
Summary: A short story of two male dragons who fall in love.This is only loosely based on canon, and isn't meant to take place in any specific parts of the books. I guess this makes it a kind of AU?





	Peace amongst the oaks

Pain, the tremble in his wings, and the damning blackness at the edges of his vision sung their song of doom within him.  
He had pushed himself too far; too fast; his injuries would overcome him. There would be no salvation - his unit had long since abandoned him, no mercy for the wounded or the weak.  
Below, the ancient oak forest stretched on for miles. He would have to land soon, and there -! A space, a splash of brightness in the dark sea of green and brown. Mustering his last reserves of strength, he locked his wings and glided down in slow, careful circles.  
Landing was painful, though he did not shame himself by collapsing. His shallow breaths could not keep up with the thundering of his heart, and his sight blurred. 

Footsteps: another dragon was approaching. He could not raise his head but he growled - a wordless command to back away.  
“I won’t hurt you,” they said. Male, his gentle voice with a lilt that spoke of warmer climates. “I’m a doctor, let me help.” They approached, and he had not the strength to protest again.  
“I’m going to touch you, it’s alright, I won’t hurt you”. They reached behind his head, cool fingers finding the vein behind his ear. “You’re cold, for a Skywing,” they said “your heart is beating fast and I can see you’re badly injured. You’ve lost a lot of blood. Can you make it inside?”  
Woozily, with the other dragon’s help, he staggered indoors. Turned left. Guided onto a large, low, flat stone in the middle of a bright room. His legs failed him, then, but he cared not.  
The other dragon - he was green, green like leaves and moss - was arranging his limbs, still speaking in his soothing voice.  
“I’m moving your right leg now - yes, that’s it, good. Good. Bear with me… here,” They appeared at his face, putting a hand under his chin, lifting his head “drink this. It will make you sleep.”  
He did. It was bitter and floral.  
“Good. Perfect. We’re going to count backwards now - blink your eyes in time with me. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six-”

\--

Bald was preparing breakfast when he heard the Skywing wake. He went to the medical room to find his charge blearily looking around - he’d had to leave the male on the stone surgery table.  
“Good morning,” he said, entering the room and carefully positioning himself to give his patient an unblocked view of the exit. “You’ve been out all of yesterday and all night. How are you feeling?”  
“Groggy,” the male growled, though from weariness, not anger “I… Where am I? Who are you?” he turned his handsome, aquiline face to scrutinize Bald with a little, understandable, hostility.  
“My name is Bald, this oak is my home. May I ask your name, or what I should call you?”  
“Victorum.” He peered about, at the wooden floor, the wooden walls, the wooden ceiling “I’m inside a tree?”  
“I can tell you about it over breakfast, are you hungry?” Victorum nodded, and Bald fetched food from the kitchen: eggs, porridge with raisins, and a salty-sweet-vinegary drink Victorum recognised as posca.  
“This giant oak is ancient,” Bald explained “and was once the home of a powerful Animagus. Legends say he would take the form of animals: joining the stags in their rut, flying south with the geese, running with the wolves.”  
“I’ve patrolled over this forest dozens of times” Victorum interjected, “I’ve never seen this clearing, nor this giant tree.”  
Bald tilted his head in acknowledgement “This forest was magic before even the Animagus lived here. This place can’t be found unless it lets you.”  
“And it lets you live here? You’re not an Animagus, are you?”  
“No, no! But when I fly away it’s here when I get back. I assume this place has accepted me.”  
“Mm.” Victorum finishes his breakfast, and Bald is contentedly silent for the time. “You’re a Rainwing, aren’t you? Bald is a very odd name.”  
“Ah, it’s not my birth name. Rainwings have a list of names they cycle through; I was originally known as Bromelia” He makes a face “Never liked it. My mother - I know she was my mother as, well, we’re both a bit odd - ah, Rainwings also hatch eggs and raise young communally, and parentage isn’t really kept track of - she encouraged me to pick a name that meant something to me.  
I was a young boy helping the doctors of my village, and I begged them to let me read the medical textbooks. There was this old book - really old, I could only understand one word in three - called Bald’s Leechbook. I loved that book! Some of the cures were pure superstition, and some looked like nonsense but in practice worked - it was fascinating, and -oh!”  
“No,” Victorum apologised, head drooping with tiredness “Please, go on, I’m just sleepy…”  
“It’s fine, you need a lot of rest to heal. I’ll leave you some more poppy-milk for when you next wake up.”

\--

It was agreed that Victorum stayed in the Animagus’ oak while he was recuperating. Bald even magnanimously gave up his bed - the summer nights were balmy, and he slept outdoors, hanging upside-down from the tree with his wings cocooned about him. Once, Victorum saw him waken at dawn, luxuriantly stretching his wings, the sunrise casting leaf-dappled shadows through them.  
Privately, he thought it quite beautiful. 

Bald gives him a tour of his home: the giant oak has many chambers within it, with stairs and windows grown into the tree itself. Besides the bedroom and medical-room there is a kitchen, a basement (it is cool and dark, though the walls are uneven and made of roots), a small library, and a room where Bald prepares and stores his medicines.  
Many days pass in comfortable companionship. The days turn into weeks, with Victorum finding excuses to stay and Bald accepting them no matter how flimsy.

They sit in the medicine room one afternoon, Victorum tying up bundles of lavender for drying, Bald grinding herbs in a mortar and pestle. It’s rhythmic krshk-krshk-krshk is the only sound. Victorum appreciates the peace.  
“Tell me about yourself,” Bald asks, quietly. “And of the Skywings. I see patrols fly overhead sometimes. I hear rumours from the villages I visit. Is it as bad as they say?”  
Victorum sets down the purple blooms. “It is… not bad. Things are difficult, you understand, with the war.” Bald says nothing, listening, allowing Victorum to talk at his own pace.  
“My family is technically of an honourable lineage, though our Queen did away with such ties to outdated antiquity. I am my father’s firstborn. He wanted me to have a noble name, and to be a warrior, like him.  
He fell in battle some time ago, as did my younger brother. It was the glorious death he wanted.”  
“I’m sorry.” Bald says “That must’ve been hard on you, and your mother.”  
Victorum shrugs his wings “My mother felt proud he fell doing his duty. She is old now, and well looked after. Mothers, you see, are looked upon with pride. If you bless the nation with pure-blooded Skywing children - especially both males and females, I have a sister, too - you are rewarded. She also received honours for having a dutiful mate, and… sons.  
I find it… very hard, to be loyal to my Queen.” His tail thrashes in discomfort, and he flattens his ears back “She has made many changes she says will make the nation strong, but…” He stops, begins again “At her right hand sits a Nightwing, he calls himself Pathfinder. He says he has seen a glorious future of the Skywing race, and he advises her in exchange for asylum from other tribes who have long unfairly persecuted him for speaking unwanted truths. There are many laws, and the better you follow the laws dictates your status. It’s more fair, you see, because it means that someone of low birth has the same opportunities as everyone else if they work in the benefit of the nation.”  
“But this does not inspire your loyalty.” Bald prompts, gently.  
“I _should_ be loyal, but the laws are very… restrictive. Your education, your job, your mate must be approved by Pathfinder’s auditors.”  
“Your mate?” Bald questions.  
“Yes, they keep a record of everyone’s lineages. It’s to make sure that no-one accidentally choses a mate that would produce unhealthy offspring.” Victorum’s words take on someone else’s cadence, as if he speaks by rote: “So no child is hatched having to suffer lifelong inherited illnesses.”  
“I see.” Krshk-krshk-krshk goes the pestle. “What if you’re a male who doesn't like females? Or vice-versa?”  
“Do you not like females?” Victorum demands.  
“I find myself unbothered. Either is fine.”  
“Well… good.” He looks away. “I… prefer males. But things are very progressive! You’re allowed to take on a mate of the same gender if you have a child first. And the auditors will even help you have one with someone who also wants a mate of the same gender, so everything works out!”  
“Victorum-”  
“It’s fine!” He gets up from the table, too quick, and hisses as he aggravates his mostly-healed wounds.  
Bald is immediately at his side. “It’s fine,” he soothes “You’re fine. Nothing’s torn. Do you need more salve?”  
Victorum shakes his head. “Just some willow bark to chew, please.”  
Bald fetches it from his medicine cabinets. They contain hundreds of little drawers, carefully labelled.  
“Victorum, can I show you something?” He leads them outside.  
There is a large clearing around the mighty Animagus’ oak, and it is Bald’s garden. It begins with neat rows of various herbs and shrubs, which grows more and more wild approaching the clearing’s edge, where the garden is reclaimed by the forest. As well as herbs there is a small orchard, a vegetable plot, trellises of hops, and finally several beehives in wooden boxes propped up off the ground.  
They approach the hives, and Victorum hesitates.  
“No need to worry,” Bald says “I’ve been breeding these bees for years now. The queens are all gentle, and their workers forgiving.”  
The bees buzz around them as they approach, investigating, and deem them safe.  
Bald gently pries open the lid of the largest hive, and unstacks the supers. The workers industriously carry on with their jobs, ignoring him. He carefully takes out one of the frames - it is filled with nicely-capped brood cells.  
“This hive is my current oldest. Look here-” he points with a claw - a few of the cells are much larger and less neat than the rest. “The queen controls the hive, but this queen is old. She isn’t laying as many eggs, and the workers sense this. They’re building princess cells, to make a new queen.”  
Bald puts the frame back, re-stacks the supers, and closes the lid. “When a princess hatches, she will swarm: mate with the drones, take away half the workers, and fly away to make a new hive.”  
“A rather heavy-handed metaphor, don’t you think?” Victorum watches the bees. “What happens if they can’t swarm?”  
“The princess and the queen will fight. Either the queen wins, and keeps control of the hive, or the princess will win and take over.”  
“And the workers,” Victorum says bitterly “I suppose some support the old queen, and some support the princess, and they fight, too?”  
“Swarming is a very difficult time, but it’s necessary. If the queen isn’t performing her duties, the whole hive will collapse.”  
Victorum sits down, and Bald joins him. The summer sun is warm, the bees are droning happily, and the air smells of rosemary. Bald half-opens his wings, basking.  
“Bald… I understand what you’re saying. But though I chafe at the laws, and I think the wrong kind of person has power… What if that’s just me? What if this really is what is best for the Skywing, and I’m just wrong?”  
“You’ve followed the laws, and been a good citizen. Has it made you happy? Are the people around you happy?”  
Victorum claws at the ground, gouging marks in the earth. “My mother is happy. My sister… I don’t know. She is very brave, and strong, but she works for the auditors so I think she hides how she feels.”  
“And you?”  
There is a long pause before he speaks. “I thought, for a long time, that I would be happy if I died like my father and brother, in a glorious battle defending our home. I did something very stupid. I volunteered to serve under... “ he whispers “The Breaker.”  
“Tell me about them, Victorum.”  
Gently, subtly, Bald uncoils his tail and drapes it over Victorum’s, in comfort.  
“He is… a monster. He’s a beast, massive, and stronger than any dozen regular Skywing soldiers. He’s a firescales, and constantly burns so hot you can feel him coming a corridor away. Weapons melt before they touch him. Though he’s not pure-blooded Skywing, he sits at the left hand of the Queen herself.  
I could tell you so many stories… A male of his high standing is expected to have an heir. The Queen has personally enforced several females upon him, but… none survive.  
I joined him on his latest campaign. We were to have a battle, but… instead he had us paint all these rocks red, and put them all over our camp, so enemy scouts would think the camp was occupied. Then, at night, we flew - gods, we flew so fast and so far, half the unit just fell out the air, dead from exhaustion. He wouldn’t allow rest. He wouldn’t allow us to go back for the fallen. We flew around their lines... to their homes. We found their village, where… where there were all their women, and children.  
The enemy troops turned around, though, and engaged us before The Breaker could… do what he wanted. They fought like demons, and I don’t blame them.  
They were too strong, too many, and we retreated. Again, no rest, and no mercy for the injured. I couldn’t keep up. And that’s… That’s when I saw your clearing.”  
“I’m so sorry you felt that way,” Bald consoles. “May I offer my opinion? I don’t think you’re wrong. I think the Skywings are in a terrible position, and you have been through some horrible experiences that no-one deserves.”  
“But what do I do, Bald?” he bemoans “I still love my people, and I’m still proud to be a Skywing. Even if I go back and try to change everything, the unrest that would cause… So many innocent people would suffer, at my hand, because of the events I’d cause!”  
“Not everyone can be a firebrand, Victorum. This isn’t a story, and you don’t have to play the role of a hero. Do what’s best for you, what makes you happy. Find a small, safe way to make the world a little better. If everyone works together to make a thousand tiny steps, it can pave the road for change.”  
The sun has crossed the sky and taken them into evening. The wind stirs the forest in quiet susurration.  
Bald softly continues “You could stay here, with me. Help me deliver medicines - you can fly faster and quicker than I can. You would help a lot of people.”  
Victorum gifts him with a shy smile “Yes, I would like that. But…” He stands “I should return to the Skywing queendom first. If I’m to leave forever, I need to see my sister. I need to know how she feels, and if she’s alright.”  
Bald stands also, stretching. “I will help you get ready. You’ll need supplies.” 

A final week passes, and Victorum is fully healed and fully prepared. The air is clear, with good winds for flying.  
“Thank you, Bald.”  
“Be safe,” he says, tenderly.  
“I will return, I promise.”  
He launches himself into the air, his powerful wingbeats taking him above the treetops. He catches an updraft and circles high, before turning and flying away.  
Bald watches him go, and then watches the empty sky a while longer.

\--

The oak is so quiet without Victorum.  
Bald gets his bed back, but now it feels strange. The various furs and blankets smell of him: of woodsmoke and rainclouds. 

Summer is ending, and the trees turn red and orange in preparation for their slumber. He is reading one of his oldest books:  
_A frogge biþ a smale beaste wiþ foure legges, whiche liueþ boþe in þe water and on londe. It is ofte tyme broune or grene or yelowe; or be it tropyckal, he may liue in trees and haue dyuers coloures_  
...But he cannot concentrate, his eyes skimming the same passage over and over.  
He hears the sound of someone landing in his garden. He puts the book down and rushes to the window - the Animagus’ magic must’ve guided another dragon in need to him.

His heart leaps to see Victorum, who hardly lands before galloping towards the oak. Bald rushes downstairs, and they meet each other in the doorway.  
“Bald!”  
“Victorum! Are you well? Are you hurt?”  
“No, Bald- I went back, my sister, my mother-”  
“Come inside, please. Let’s have something to drink.”  
They retire to the kitchen, where Bald prepares sweet rose tea. Victorum drinks his whole cup straight away, unscathed by the boiling water. Bald pours him another.  
“My mother has passed away,” he says, but forstalls Bald’s commiserations “She was old, and sick, and thought I was still away on duty. She was kept comfortable and happy, and passed away peacefully in her sleep. To her last day, she truly believed in… in how things are currently run.  
My sister has also left the Skywing kingdom, eloped with a Mudwing female! They’re going to start working to quietly ferry other people out. All this time, she’s been working with the auditors so she can learn how they work, and how to do this under their noses!”  
“That’s wonderful! And perhaps those people will need medicine? Doctoring?”  
“Yes! I- I don’t want to drag you into this, but I thought-”  
“Please, Victorum, I would be delighted to help.” Bald flares his ruff with excitement. “We should celebrate! Help me get some kegs out the basement…”

The pair sit in one of the branches of the grand old oak, watching the sunset and drinking Bald’s pale summer ale. It is refreshing and crisp, with slight notes of pine and herbs.  
“I thought I preferred wine,” Vicroum declares, “But this is delicious!” He sways in place, happily drunk.  
Bard, too, is gleefully worse for drink. His scales have sluggishly taken on a reddish hue.  
“How are you going to get down? You’ve had too much to fly.”  
“Nonsense! I shall simply spread my wings-” He does so, to demonstrate, and promptly loses his balance. He falls gracelessly, but his hind claws grip mightily to the branch. He ends up upside-down.  
Bald crows with laughter, and joins him, lithely curling his tail around the branch for support. “How- How-” he sniggers “How’s it hanging?”  
“Stop dangling there like an overripe pear and help me!”  
With much effort and much inelegance, Victorum is righted. He leans against Bald for support.  
“I think we should call it a night,” Bald suggests. “Have some water, a light snack.”  
“Do you have some spare blankets?” Victorum asks “I’m happy to be the one to sleep outside, I could get a fire going…”  
Bald’s scales turn redder. Gently, he places his hand over Victorum’s. “Or… You could join me. There’s space for two.”  
Victorum softly presses his head to Bald’s, humming contentedly.  
“Yes, I would like that.”

\--

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've written something in many years. I worked very hard, and I'm proud. I hope you enjoy reading.
> 
> I have drawn the characters in this story:  
> Bald - https://www.deviantart.com/lordmaddie/art/Bald-Wings-of-Fire-RainWing-866913031  
> Victorum - https://www.deviantart.com/lordmaddie/art/Victorum-WoF-Skywing-867829982


End file.
